


This wasn't meant to happen

by AutumnBlueWylde



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: F/M, I cried while writing this, I really am sorry though, I'm Sorry, M/M, Sorry Not Sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-06
Updated: 2016-08-09
Packaged: 2018-07-29 15:32:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 2,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7690018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AutumnBlueWylde/pseuds/AutumnBlueWylde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU ending to The Raven King, which could get seriously upsetting.<br/>TW: Death, self harm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It was a year to the day. Gansey died 12months previous to the day that Ronan found Blue, curled on his mattress in the building they couldn't bring themselves to sell.

Ronan had set up a boxing school on the ground floor, after 3 gruelling weeks of cleaning and renovation. It was a distraction.  
Upstairs hadn't been touched. Mint plants still sat upon his desk. The miniature Henrietta, still in the midst of refurbishment after the Gray Man and his assailants had demolished it, his bare bed still in the middle of the room, pool table still in the middle of a game that Gansey was losing to Adam.

His name hurt. It caught in their throats and cut like glass. The sight of the Camaro, still sitting in the overgrown lot, burned, looking too closely at the sun.

Ronan found Blue, and held her. Her head in his lap, him telling her "It's okay, Blue. It's okay." He held her like that for hours, until Adam found them.


	2. The Day He Tried To Live

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blue pushed his hair up from his face, and kissed his nose, he still smelled of mint, she hicupped and placed herself back in Henry's arms as Adam and Ronan both fist bumped him.

Blue touched Gansey's face. She whispered, "Wake up."

Ronan took Adam's hand and put his arm around Orphan Girl. He wiped the tears from his face. More accurately, he scrubbed them away.

Henry knelt beside Blue. Her tears had come back. Gansey's head in her lap, fingers still on his cheekbone. "Wake up! Gansey!" She sobbed. A deep, ragged, painful sob.

Adam's tears had found their way to his face. Ronan's eyes spilled over again, fury and fear cut his face like a machete.  
Henry held Blue, she kept screaming.

"Dammit, Gansey! Please!" She threw her gaze to Adam and Ronan, "Why is Cabeswater not doing anything?!" Her tone was accusatory. They didn't know. They fell beside her. 

Ronan called an ambulance.

**************

7:21pm: Hospital waiting room. Silence apart from Ronan tapping his boot persistently against the linoleum flooring.

7:22 pm: The doctor walking into the family room. Mrs Gansey wailing. Mr Gansey hurling the door open. Helen storming towards the exit. Blue, incredulous. 

Adam "That's not good."

Ronan; "Shit."

Henry took Blue's hand. "This isn't how I thought it would end," her face pressed to his shoulder, "I thought we were all going to Venezuela." Her cries muffled in the fabric of his sweater.

"I'm so sorry," the doctor had come to speak to them, Blue, specifically.

"No." She whispered.

"There was nothing we co-"

She screamed. Henry held her. Ronan held Adam, they joined Henry and Blue on the aging red sofa as Mr and Mrs Gansey came towards them. Blue hauled herself up and into Mrs Gansey's arms, she was shocked, this spikey haired girl was the subject of many a conversation with her son, but this was never the way they were supposed to meet.

The doctor, Mr Evans (a cardiology consultant) led them into the room where they had been trying, with every effort, to save their King. The court, in pieces over their loss, stood around him.

Blue pushed his hair up from his face, and kissed his nose, he still smelled of mint, she hiccuped and placed herself back in Henry's arms as Adam and Ronan both fist bumped him.

"Gansey, man. This was never supposed to happen." Henry whispered, beneath the crying of the older friends, of the best friend he's ever had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sorry. But not really.  
> This just came to me while I was listening to Blue Oyster Cult.  
> It had to be done.


	3. Time To Say Goodbye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blue, Ronan, Adam and Henry didn't know what to expect, but it wasn't what they found. The 2 hour car ride to DC ended at the Gansey family residence. The front entrance packed to overflowing.

Blue hadn't slept properly for a week. Her eyes stayed open because the scene that played behind them when they closed was too unbearable. Open because when she did sleep, however briefly, she managed to convince herself it was a bad nightmare, and waking was soul destroying.

Ronan picked her up in his BMW, Adam and Henry were already inside, quiet. Adam was fiddling with a piece of leather that had come loose on the seat, Henry was just as listless in the back of the car, head against the window.

Maura and Calla followed in the shared car.

Blue, Ronan, Adam and Henry didn't know what to expect, but it wasn't what they found. The 2 hour car ride to DC ended at the Gansey family residence. The front entrance packed to overflowing.

Mrs Gansey was dressed formally, but no black. No one was wearing black. Except Ronan, but the only colour Ronan ever wore were his ice blue eyes. She flitted around the room, from guest to guest, accepting condolences but moving from them ever so quickly. Adam found Helen and gave her a hug, she started crying, which was when Blue noticed she wasn't wearing makeup, why bother?

Mr Gansey firmly shook Ronan and Henry's hands, then pulled Blue into a bear hug, introducing himself to Maura and Calla.  
His mask was slipping, he excused himself.

*******************

The service was short, Mrs Gansey was joined by Mr Gansey when she could no longer hold herself together, Helen held her hand as she broke down.

"No parent should ever have to bury a child," The pastor informed the congregation, with a deep sadness in his eyes.

It was incredibly difficult for them to look at the mahogany coffin, adorned with lilies, dyed blue, to accept that was their best friend. Their lover. Their mentor. Teacher. Referee. King.

Blue couldn't do it. She stood up, pushing her chair back so hard it nearly tipped, had Adam not caught it.  
#  
She ran. She ran until her chest caught fire at the edge of the cemetery, and screamed. She screamed and screamed and screamed until nothing came out. Sinking to her knees, she pounded the grass. She was shaking when she found someone holding her.

"Shh," Ronan stroked her hair, "shh. It's okay."

"It's not." Her words ground against her throat like sandpaper. "It never will be."

Ronan picked her up, and dried her tears with the heel of his hand, then just held her. Until she was ready to leave, to go back to Henrietta.


	4. Scared

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ronan hadn't even shut off the engine. He just flew out of the car and over to Adam, who allowed himself to be held, depsite the fact he looked so bewildered and lost, that Blue could have mistaken him for a baby deer.

Adam was meant to be flying out to California. He'd been accepted into Stanford. He was going to be a counselor.

Henry, Blue and Gansey were supposed to be leaving for Venezuela.

Ronan was going to dream back Cabeswater.

None of them could go through with anything that Gansey had made possible.

Adam put off college until next year. Ronan threw himself into making sure Opal didn't eat everything she could get her hands on. Blue kept taking shifts at Nino's.

After the funeral, Henry went to Korea with his mother and Robobee, he and Blue still skyped occasionally, when she wasn't working.

Adam and Ronan often brought Opal into Nino's with them. Blue loved fussing over her, Opal was always delighted for the free ice cream.

********************

It was 3 months after the funeral when Blue got a phone call at 4am. She'd acquired a mobile phone after working non stop for nearly 3 weeks.

"Sargent."

"Fuck off, Ronan." She hung up and turned over. Her phone rang again, "Seriously, Ronan." She hung up. It rang again. She sat up, really awake. Ronan never used his phone. "What's wrong?"

"Adam's gone."

"What?"

It was forty five minutes before the BMW pulled up outside. Red dawn light pierced through the clouds in the east.

She climbed in and they sped off.

"What's happened?" She rubbed her eyes, blearily.

"I woke up and he was gone. His phone was still there."

He explained about the whole episode in DC when Adam and Gansey had gone for the "congress bullshit". Adam had disappeared for a whole day. They'd found him wandering down the highway, just south of the Pentagon. Transient Global Amnesia. Of course, she remembered, how could she forget? 

Ronan was scared.

Blue loved how Ronan loved Adam, and that hurt. The twinge in her chest turned into a flame. A tear so huge she thought it would consume her.

"The trailer park." Blue told Ronan. The look on his face told her he hadn't thought of that. Of course he'd go there.

That's where they found him. Sat under the mail boxes at the end of the dirt track that led to his father's double wide. Hunched over, blank faced, crying.

Ronan hadn't even shut off the engine. He just flew out of the car and over to Adam, who allowed himself to be held, depsite the fact he looked so bewildered and lost, that Blue could have mistaken him for a baby deer.


	5. Take her tears, put them on ice.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He knocked on the door. No answer. He knocked louder. He could hear movement and a muffled "fuck off" from the other side.

A month after she and Ronan had found Adam, incoherent and upset at his old home, Blue was hauling debris from the ground floor of Monmouth. Ronan had gotten a permit to turn it into a boxing gym.

"I'm going to open a gym." He'd said to Adam and Blue over breakfast one day.

She'd been staying at the Barns with them. Her house was unbearable. No one could look at her without a horribly penetrating pity in their eyes. Plus, Adam let her use his car.

When Ronan made his announcement, she'd nearly choked on her spoon. Adam thumped on her back as Opal laughed wildly at her.

"What?" She managed when her cutlery was no longer lodged in her oesophagus.

Adam looked at him in a way that said "what she said"

"Yeah," Ronan said around a bite of toast, "I'm not selling Monmouth, but we can't just leave it like that."

And that was that. Ronan got everything cleared, not hard to do when you you can dream anything you need. 

It was mostly first years from Aglionby who found it through flyers Blue had stuck around Nino's, and had heard rumours about the notorious Ronan Lynch.

Still, none of them would go upstairs. They couldn't.

****************

Ronan knew something was wrong when neither he nor Adam had spoken to Blue in a week. Even Henry couldn't get hold of her.

"Come on." Ronan said to Adam, swiping his keys off the counter, hoisting Opal onto his hip.

"Where?" Adam followed, as he always does.

"Fox Way."

"Ah." Adam knew something was wrong too.

The drive from the Barns was quiet. Every few minutes, Opal would point at something that probably didn't exist out of the window and speak gibberish.

*****************

Maura opened the front door. She looked terrible. Even Calla wasn't her usual feisty self. The whole house was wrong. Everything was dull, quiet, tiptoeing around everyone's feelings. Adam was uncomfortable.

Chainsaw stayed close to Ronan, pressed to his neck and jaw, as he climbed the stairs to Blue's room. Adam stayed in the kitchen.

He knocked on the door. No answer. He knocked louder. He could hear movement and a muffled "fuck off" from the other side. 

He blew out a sigh and opened the door.

Her curtains were drawn. Clothes were stacked in piles around the room. Books lay open, half un-read. Yoghurt pots and spoons covered her desk under the window.

Blue was curled up in the corner of her bed, head against the wall, knees under her chin. Her face was wet. Stained with the all tears she'd held in since that night.

"Sargent?"

"Go away, Ronan." She used the heel of one hand to wipe both sides of her face. Her sleeves were rolled up to her elbows, pock marks covered both arms. He grabbed her wrist, and looked closer before she wrenched her hand free. "What the hell?!"

"I could ask you the same. The fuck is that?"

She self consciously pulled her sleeves down, and said "Dermatillomania"

"Once again, in English?"

She sighed and pushed her self off the wall as he sat down. She fidgeted with the frayed ends of her sleeve. "Obsessive skin picking."

"Gross. Why?"

"Stress? Anxiety? I don't know, Ronan."

"Is this why we haven't heard from you in a week?" He gestured at her arms, trying to remember the last time he saw her in a short sleeve shirt. He couldn't. How long had this been happening?

She lay down. Pulled the covers over herself, and fell asleep before Ronan even knew what was happening.


	6. Getting better

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blue's mother made her go to therapy after Ronan and Adam told her about the pock marks on her arms.

A few weeks after Ronan had confronted Blue, she was doing better. She stayed at the Barns more again, and would look after Opal and make snacks and drinks for Ronan's students in a kitchenette he'd had fitted during the refurbishment of the ground floor of Monmouth.

She'd help Adam with applications for colleges, and they were all so ecstatic when they found out that Standford would still allow him to attend, due to his circumstances. Their joy was short lived though, when they realised that the person that they wanted to celebrate most with, wasn't there.

Adam was driving Blue to one of her sessions with her Maura-mandated therapist when he noticed she didn't look quite as happy as she had done recently.

"What's up?" he asked, pulling into the parking lot of the office building where her shrink, Doctor Halliday, had his own floor.

Her head had been resting on the window and she'd been staring listlessly, "Hm?" She looked at him, all at once, her expression brightening, "Oh! I was just thinking." She smiled, and climbed out into the miserable grey day. Adam recognised that smile. He'd pulled it out enough times to realise it wasn't real. She wasn't doing better at all, she was just really convincing, and they hadn't known. Gansey would have known. Something caught in his throat.

 _Ronan and I are shitty friends._.

He got out of the car and went after her, pulling her into a hug, she pushed him off, still smiling, half laughing when she said "Adam, really. I'm fine." She smiled and waved from the main entrance to the building.

***************************

Gansey's birthday was horrendous. His parents invited Blue, Ronan and Adam to their house in DC. And even though Ronan protested _really_ hard ("What about Opal? Chainsaw? THE COWS") they went, and were surprised to see Henry when they arrived. It had been six months.

His hair was short and his clothes were less obnoxious. Something about everyone in the room, was less.

But it got easier as the day wore on. Everyone started sharing stories. Mrs Gansey recalled a time when her son was 12 years old, and they were on a family holiday in Mauritius. He'd been reading a book whilst walking, not paying attention to where he was going, and fell into their pool. He had been more upset about his shoes getting wet than the book.

The drive back to Henrietta was long. No one spoke. Blue fell asleep on Henry in the backseat of the BMW and Ronan noticed that her face looked more relaxed than it had in months, and he smiled.


	7. Came The Last Day of Sadness....

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...and it was clear that she couldn't go on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Suicide/blood

It was a year to the day. Gansey died 12 months previous to the day that Ronan found Blue, curled on his best friends mattress in the building they couldn't bring themselves to sell.

Ronan had set up a boxing school on the ground floor, after 3 grueling weeks of cleaning and renovation. It was a distraction.

Upstairs hadn't been touched. Mint plants still sat upon his desk. The miniature Henrietta, still in the midst of refurbishment after the Gray Man and his assailants had demolished it, his bare bed still in the middle of the room, pool table still in the middle of a game that Gansey was losing to Adam.

His name hurt. It caught in their throats and cut like glass. The sight of the Camaro, still sitting in the overgrown lot, burned, looking too closely at the sun.

Ronan found Blue, and held her. Her head in his lap, him telling her "It's okay, Blue. It's okay." He held her like that for hours, until Adam found them, covered in her blood, her body limp and lifeless.

Adam found her note among the now dead mint plants.

_I tried so hard. But I couldn't. I'm sorry._

Ronan had tried to stop her bleeding, but he was already too late. She knew what she wanted, she had severed her femoral artery with a broken razor, she would have died in minutes. Still, he'd tried. He'd pushed her hair back from her now porcelain face. Blood clung to her eyebrows, and spiked her hair in a way that mirrored her usual style in a grotesque way.

Adam called an ambulance.

***********************

Two years had passed since he had lost his best friend. One since he lost another. And six months since it all became too much for him and he left Henrietta behind in pursuit of a new life.

Stanford suited Adam. He made new friends. He bought a new car. A new phone and new clothes.

Adam Parrish. A new man.

He missed Ronan. But there was never a doubt in his mind that he had done the right thing. Henry told him that he had taken Opal and moved to County Kildare in Ireland, Adam was happy for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew. That was emotional. I'd had an idea to write something like this a few months back, days after I finished TRK. But warred with myself thinking "would anyone really thank me for this?" But.... I did it anyway.
> 
> Dermatillomania is something I've actually suffered with. It's a type of OCD like habit that causes sufferers to constantly pick at their skin and can be triggered by stress and depression. The only current treatment is therapy such as CBT.


End file.
